Virtual Commissioning Implementation of Side Panel Assembly Process for Automotive Shop Floor

Abstract

Industry 4.0 has established new standards in manufacturing and quality processes, which are mainly based on the type and efficiency of the different components of an industrial system. Virtual commissioning (VC) is an approach that allows the user to propose a commissioning solution using computer models of industrial systems to speed up and improve the traditional processes. This paper presents a VC solution for an industrial automotive assembly line process using toolchains of standard and off-the-shelf software and hardware components, including physical PLC and HMI. The virtual assembly line environment was developed using digital mock-ups of industrial robots, smart conveyors, controllers, and sensors. The toolchains share most of their components, virtual and physical, and can be classified as pure software or software and hardware applications. The connection between the elements of the toolchain is done using industrial protocols like Modbus TCP and APIs, ensuring complete data transfer. After several tests, the results have shown that by performing the simulated process with the VC platform, it is possible to verify automation hardware and software, with a representative digital robotic cell, thanks to the applied simulation technique.

Keywords

• virtual commissioning
• virtual engineering
• automotive industry
• functional modeling
• multi-software toolchain